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Macworld: Java is alive and well on the Mac

Mac OS X gives Java developers unprecedented opportunities

By Daniel Steinberg, JavaWorld.com, 01/18/02

Page 2 of 4

Indeed, it becomes more and more difficult to tell a Java-based Mac OS X application from a native application. Java developers can truly target multiple platforms with a single application.

eVision's Visual Search technology

Kasu Sista, eVision's vice president of technology, demonstrated the company's sophisticated, Java-based Visual Search technology, a visual search engine. Sista mentioned that eVision ported the application to Mac OS X in just two days. He reported that the application experienced an initial 25 percent performance hit by choosing Java, but JVM improvements have reduced the gap. As the only Java-based visual search engine, he said, eVision can make its product available on any platform with a JRE.

eVision's Visual Search technology allows users to search a database based on visual cues, a task that requires significant computational prowess. Currently, most Internet search is text based, making the search dependent on meta tags and keywords. However, problems arise with text-based searching because of incorrect meta tags, inconsistent keywords, or language differences between the user and the database, as examples. The eVision application, in contrast, segments images into object regions, then generates the meta tags used in the search. eVision's Visual Search online demo allows you to search images by color, texture, shape, and object. Imagine a future in which you can search on other senses such as taste, smell, or emotion.

During his demonstration, Sista sketched a primitive version of the Apple Computer logo, then searched just based on his drawing. The database returned all of the images of the Apple logo, as well as a few duck images (which did look similar to the logo). The Apple logo search represents an effective search through a large amount of data. Moving on, Sista executed a mug shot search through a database of faces. He clicked on a bald, clean-shaven man with glasses. The application retrieved all faces in the database with similar characteristics. Then, using the original man, he sketched a rough, rather funny-looking beard on the face. The application quickly returned a subset of the original group, including those who also sported a beard. The ease with which he performed the refined search demonstrated eVision's potential.

Borland's JBuilder6

Blake Stone, Borland's chief scientist, gives great JBuilder demos. JBuilder 6 is a large, 100-percent Java IDE. During the demo, Stone reported that Borland ported JBuilder to Mac OS X in a matter of hours, with an extra couple of days of platform debugging. He said that the remaining porting time was spent "working with Apple to make sure that their VM is a solid offering." Borland wants Apple's JVM up to snuff because JBuilder 6 is a single code base for all platforms.

Java development on the Mac is much easier using JBuilder 6. As with earlier editions, developers can choose to use visual designers or to work directly with code, depending on what is more appropriate. The text editor immediately displays your code's structure as you add, modify, or remove fields and methods. Stone demonstrated JBuilder 6's new UML tool that visually displays your code's organization. He demonstrated how the UML tool can rename (or even move) classes, methods, or fields. Further, JBuilder 6's built-in refactoring features can rename not just a method, but also all of the names used to call that method. From the UML diagram you can also locate methods and fields, go to where they are declared, and view their Javadocs.

 

Improve efficiency with Visual Studio(r) 2010 Beta 2. - Microsoft

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